Donna FW17

“Quietness is the word that keeps resurfacing in my mind when I think of Forme d’Expression. There is quietness in its fabrics. They are luxurious, but never luxe. There is quietness of design; even when Park’s pieces are dramatic, and some of them definitely are, there is a certain restraint to them.”

Donna FW17

The life work of couture trained Umbrian designer Koeun Park can be seen in the fragility and the poetic interplay between garment and wearer. Her belief is the two are symbiotic: the garment should never impose. In 2005 the house name Forme 3’3204322896 or Forme d’ Expression was created by decoding numeric orders of the “Helvetica-Fraction” font. Before sewing, each garment is hand cut, fused, marked, and prepped by Koeun.

Uomo FW17

Donna SS17

Donna SS17

Donna SS17

Donna SS17

Donna SS17

Uomo SS17

Forme d'Expression designer Koeun Park was born in Seoul and studied Haute Couture workmanship at the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la mode Parisienne, in Paris, before becoming a Master at Instituto Marangoni in Milan in 1998. She began the label in Italy in 2005.

The meticulous approach to construction, followed by many layers of post work exemplify the brand's philosophy of having the clothing be real, and familiar even before the wearer slips the garment on. Quietly elegant and real, the label aims to create different forms of human expression through fashion.

Forme D’Expression

Siki Im was selected as the winner of a Creative Promise Prize in Fashion for his menswear designs that draw inspiration from architecture, culture, politics, and psychology. Im is the fashion designer behind SIKI IM, a line of luxury menswear, and DEN IM, a denim and basics extension line.

A former architect, he is interested in the intersections of culture, theory, and psychology within the design process. Sold in stores worldwide, each of Im’s collections centers on a theme (from immigrants and xenophobia to The Lord of the Flies), which he researches in depth to build into a collection of draped, often unisex pieces.

He seeks to grow his company into a multi-focus creative design studio that also works in architecture and product design. Siki Im was born in Germany to Korean immigrant parents.

SPRING 2018 MENSWEAR

The designer had been thinking about Georgia O’Keeffe, in particular the pre-eminent painter’s exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum (one week left), which sheds as much light on her personal, recreational style as it does on the monumentality of her work. That she wore ordinary clothes—blue jeans, stripes, color—in her off-time, while reserving her dark, imposing, monastic wardrobe for her public persona, fascinated Im. “She had a secret attire, a sort of double life,” he said. “I feel like I’m on the same path.”

FALL 2017 MENSWEAR

His signature dramatic draping and clever use of black, indigo, maroon and gray hues with unexpected pops of bright pink are balanced in the form of asymmetrical outerwear, blazers, hoodies and more. The overall theme injects various cross-cultural references as a mix between S.E. Hinton’s Ponyboy character from The Outsiders, is fused with looks from urban cowboys and Buddhist monks.

SPRING 2017 MENSWEAR The clothes are amazing as usual. I adore that trench coat, which is 100% wool, but apparently waterproof. The collection also has fantastic use of layering and angles. “That comes from my architectural training,” Im told me. “I love good proportions, good scale. It has to have a certain proportion, for me. Scale and mass, like a building.”

Siki Im

Siki Im Fall/ Winter 2016 Menswear Ready-To-Wear Collection by designer Siki Im.

FALL 2016 MENSWEAR

"I love you, New York, but you're bringing me down," singer Anthony Costanzo trilled from Siki Im's runway in quivering falsetto. The song, by LCD Soundsystem, is a cult anthem of dream chasers everywhere, and, arranged here with a forlorn electric guitar, it made for a poignant expression of the conflicted feelings the designer has for the city.

FALL 2014 MENSWEAR

Backstage before his show, Siki Im seemed sheepish to say his collection drew from the 1970s. "Not my favorite, really, but that's why I thought I should explore it," laughed the designer, grabbing a pair of wool felt trousers. "Boot leg!" he said. "I never had one in my life. It was a huge stretch for me." Aside from the boot legs and a few butterfly collars, Im's take on the decade was more avant-garde, less disco.

SPRING 2014 MENSWEAR

Prison: so hot right now. Designer Siki Im, for one, is currently fascinated by the idea of institutions. More particularly, jail and hospital uniforms, which explains why Alix Lambert's Russian-prison documentary The Mark of Cain was a main source of information for the designer's Spring collection. "It's a pretty intense documentary," said Im backstage at his Monday runway show, which took place in an indoor parking lot. (Range Rovers and BMWs lined the grit-covered brick walls.)

FALL 2013 MENSWEAR

When Siki Im revisited Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler for the first time since his days as an architecture student, it struck him that the pomo masterwork was ripe for reinterpretation into clothes. Calvino even wrote paragraph-long outfit descriptions into the book—as ideal a prescription for an intellectual menswear collection as ever there was.

German-born designer Siki Im trained as an architect before switching disciplines to fashion, working under Karl Lagerfeld and as head designer at Helmut Lang until launching his namesake line in 2009. Bringing a fully realized conceptual depth and backstory to each collection, Im specializes in structured, minimalist Western tailoring with an intellectual bent.

Siki Im